30. The Measure of a Mother #2
They processed to the blue drawing room, where the Sèvres service gleamed on the tea table, and Jamison stood at attention near the fireplace, having banked the fire to the precise temperature Miss Pargeter had demanded.
Elizabeth gestured the Apethorpes toward the best seats—the settee near the window, where the afternoon light would fall kindly on the Countess’s complexion—and took her own place in the chair opposite, arranging her skirts with hands that were steadier than her nerves.
Tea was poured, plain biscuits circulated, and the Earl pronounced the china satisfactory.
The Countess admired the view, noting the grounds were well-kept, while Georgiana contributed remarks on the weather so exquisitely bland that Elizabeth could have embraced her on the spot.
This was the minuet of formal calls, all measured steps and polite evasions, a far cry from the cheerful bedlam of Longbourn, where her mother and sisters had commented on everything and everyone with unfiltered delight.
“We understand Mr. Darcy is in London,” the Countess said, taking the smallest sip of tea possible. “On business, I presume.”
“Yes, my lady. He expects to return within the week.”
“A pity. We had hoped to pay our respects to him as well.” The Countess’s eyes met Elizabeth’s over the rim of her teacup. “Though I confess we were equally eager to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Darcy. We have heard so much about you.”
Have you indeed, Elizabeth thought. And what exactly have you heard? That I am a fortune hunter? A desperate spinster who accepted the first proposal that came her way? Or merely a gentleman’s daughter of no particular consequence, elevated beyond her station by a man’s inexplicable whim?
“I hope the reports were not too alarming,” she said aloud, permitting herself a small, measured smile.
“On the contrary. We were told you are a woman of considerable intelligence and wit.” The Countess’s tone was as bland as her weak tea, revealing nothing of her true feelings. “Our daughter valued such qualities, though she often lamented how rarely she found them in her own sex.”
Elizabeth was frankly surprised that the Countess would mention her daughter so directly, and she exchanged a worried glance with Georgiana, who had gone very still.
“I did not have the pleasure of knowing Lady Amelia,” Elizabeth said carefully. “But I understand she was a woman of remarkable accomplishments.”
“Remarkable.” The Countess repeated the word as though testing its weight, turning it over in her mind.
“Yes, that is one way to describe her. She was certainly never content with the ordinary. From childhood, she required . . . more. More attention, more admiration, more scope for her talents. The world as it was could never satisfy her; she needed to remake it according to her own vision.”
“She sounds incredible,” Elizabeth said, thinking of how Amelia had captured a man’s devotion and then refused to accept it on any terms but her own.
“My daughter was utterly certain of her own rightness. No counsel could sway her, no consequence could frighten her. When she decided upon a course, she pursued it without regard for who might be wounded in the process.”
“Mother.” The Earl spoke for the first time since entering the drawing room, his voice a low warning that carried the weight of long practice.
He subsided as the Countess shot him a withering glare—the sort of look that had probably ended many arguments over the course of their marriage.
“We supported Mr. Darcy’s suit, you know.
” The Countess had turned back to Elizabeth, her gaze intent, almost hungry.
“When he offered for Amelia, we urged her to accept. A man of his standing, his character, his evident devotion—what more could a mother want for her daughter? But Amelia had her principles.” The word emerged with a faint twist, as though it tasted bitter on her tongue.
“She believed marriage was a species of bondage, that a woman who accepted a husband’s name also accepted his dominion.
She would not be possessed. She could not be contained. ”
“My husband behaved honorably,” Elizabeth heard herself say, the words sharp before she could stop them.
“Indeed, he bears no fault,” the Countess agreed, and something in her voice softened.
“We were not permitted to see Thomas after the birth,” she continued, her voice dropping.
“Amelia felt our support of Mr. Darcy’s suit was a betrayal of her liberty.
She accused us of valuing position over her happiness, and she wished to live apart from us.
She wrote us, her pen as sharp as a stiletto, and she did not spare our feelings. ”
“I am sorry.” The words emerged before Elizabeth could consider whether she truly meant them, but as she spoke, she found they were sincere. “That must have been very painful.”
“It was.” The Countess’s voice was raw now, stripped of its careful polish. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief that materialized from somewhere in her sleeve. “We lost our daughter years before she died. The phaeton accident merely made it final.”
Georgiana had gone pale, her teacup rattling slightly in its saucer. The Earl was staring fixedly at a point above Elizabeth’s head, his jaw tight. The Countess sat rigid, as though holding herself together by force of will alone.
Elizabeth had braced herself for adversaries, not for parents hollowed out by loss. She had rehearsed arguments for claims and lawyers, for the chill of legal maneuvering, but not for grief that had been left to sour in the dark for years.
“Perhaps,” she said slowly, “you would like to see your grandson now.”
The Countess’s breath caught, a small, broken sound. “Yes. Yes, we would like that very much.”
Elizabeth nodded to Jamison, who departed to fetch Hartley and Thomas.
Georgiana, sensing the need for something to fill the silence, offered to play a piece on the pianoforte, and the room filled with the gentle strains of a sonata—adequate, if not inspired.
The time passed agreeably enough, though Elizabeth could not help noticing the way the Apethorpes’ eyes kept drifting toward the door with such naked yearning that a lump caught in her throat.
When the door opened again, Thomas stood in the threshold with Hartley’s hand on his shoulder, dressed in his blue velvet coat. He clutched Captain—his one-eared wooden horse—against his chest, and his eyes, Darcy’s eyes, dark and serious, swept the room with suspicion.
“Thomas.” Elizabeth rose and crossed to him, kneeling so that their faces were level. “These are Lord and Lady Apethorpe. They have come to visit you. Can you say good afternoon?”
Thomas considered the couple for a long moment, his small face unreadable. Then he shook his head with the firmness of a child who had made up his mind.
“Then let us meet them.” She took his hand and led him toward the settee, his small fingers clutching hers with a grip that betrayed his nervousness.
“What a handsome boy.” The Countess had risen from the settee and approached slowly, as though afraid of startling a wild creature. “You have your mother’s coloring, Thomas. Did you know that? She had dark hair, just like yours.”
Thomas’s grip on Captain tightened. He pressed closer to Elizabeth, his brows lowering with the stubbornness that was so like his father’s.
“Thomas is shy,” Elizabeth explained. “But once he knows you, he is quite conversational. He has been telling his snail all about your visit.”
“His snail?” The Earl spoke with faint incredulity, one eyebrow rising.
“Sidney. A garden snail of considerable distinction. Thomas is something of a naturalist.”
A smile tugged at the corner of the Countess’s mouth—the first genuine expression Elizabeth had seen from her, and it transformed her face entirely. “Amelia was the same. She collected beetles when she was small. Drove her governess to absolute despair.”
Elizabeth sensed the air change—a softening, or at least the easing of that brittle tension which had hovered like a breath held too long. The Countess was not simply measuring Thomas; she was searching for her daughter’s shadow, for some sign that Amelia lingered in this solemn child.
Thomas perked up at the mention of snails, his suspicion forgotten in favor of his favorite topic. “Sidney mine. Baby snails many,” he announced, abandoning his shyness with the suddenness of a summer storm. “Lizba counted.”
“Did she indeed?” The Countess glanced at Elizabeth with amusement, something warm flickering in her eyes. “And how many babies did Sidney have?”
“Lots more than fingers.”
“That is a great many babies indeed.”
“Sidney good Mamma.” Thomas clutched Elizabeth’s skirts, his small face earnest. “Like Lizba. Mine.”
“I had thought Sidney to be a father,” the Earl remarked, a dry note entering his voice.
At the word father, Thomas’s lower lip quivered, and his thumb made its slow journey toward his mouth. Since Darcy’s departure, his moods had shifted with the caprice of spring weather—sunshine one moment, storm the next.
“You are raising him well,” the Countess said, glancing at Elizabeth with something that might have been approval. “I can see that.”
“Waaaaarooahh!” A sound erupted from the corridor—a deep, melodious baying that could only belong to one creature in all of Derbyshire.
And Harley burst into the drawing room like a brown-and-white tornado, his claws scrabbling on the marble floor, his ears flapping, his tail wagging with such enthusiasm that it seemed to power his entire body.
He bounded across the carpet, trailing his lead behind him, and launched himself at Thomas with the devotion of a creature who believed himself separated from his boy for an eternity.
Thomas shrieked with delight, dropping Captain and throwing his arms around Harley’s neck. “Harley! Harley come! Mine!”